By Gregory Favre
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RELATED RESOURCES
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Yesterday (Aug. 29, 2006) was the one-year anniversary of the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast.
Poynter Online is marking the event with a weeklong series of articles, resources and remembrances. Scroll to the bottom of this article to see the other stories we've published this week. Here is a sampling:
MONDAY (08/28/06):
"Prepping for Disaster: The Lessons of Katrina," by Al Tompkins
TUESDAY (08/29/06):
"As New Storms Approach, Five Lessons from Katrina," by Keith Woods
"Katrina: History is Now," a list of Katrina-related books by David Shedden
"Lessons Learned: On Being Laid Bare," reflections from Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose
"American Behemoth,"
A year after Katrina, have we restored the social contract? by Roy Peter Clark
WEDNESDAY (08/30/06):
"After Katrina: A Clickable Landscape," by Poynter staff
"Like New Orleans Itself, Media Business Is Recovering Slowly," by Rick Edmonds
"Katrina One Year Later: Essays & Epilogues"
"Photos Find New Purpose," by Matt Stamey
"From Seeking to Rescuing," by Arthur Lauck
To see how Poynter Online covered Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, click here.
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Stan Tiner knew he was asking a lot, maybe more than his
Sun Herald staff could give.
After all, this was almost a year after Katrina had left the Mississippi Gulf Coast a bruised and battered shadow of what it used to be, almost a year of wall-to-wall, we-can't-let-up coverage of the biggest story in the paper's history.
It was almost a year after a number of the same staffers had lost their homes and possessions and had to postpone their grieving because they were too busy telling the stories of others, stories of devastation and rebuilding and hope. Oh, and by the way, the
paper had just been sold to McClatchy. In addition to the monumental coverage, the staff produced
two successful Katrina books. And the paper was awarded a
Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, which it shared with
The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune.
But Tiner, the
Sun Herald's editor, had to ask for more: five special sections to mark the anniversary of the largest natural disaster in our country's history -- a total of 160 pages looking back and forward, capturing what happened and where the rebuilding of readers' communities now stands. It would include stories about the
volunteers and iconic figures who left a mark by their actions.
"I knew it was asking a lot," Tiner said. "Everyone has given so much every day and this was a huge, huge task. But they did it. I told them I would not have been surprised to get back the least, but I got the best. And people will be talking about what they did for years."
The fact is, the
Sun Herald staff will be covering this story for years. The Mississippi coast, often forgotten because of the spotlight shining on New Orleans, has a long journey to normalcy. I see it in my hometown,
Bay St. Louis.
I feel it with my own family, a sister and brothers, nieces, nephews and cousins, most of whom have to start over. And we hear it over and over again within the larger community.
"I'm running out of hope," a woman told Tiner at a recent meeting held in a Methodist church. "It has been a year. Things ought to be better."
For some, things are better. For so many, things aren't. And the slow recovery is taking its toll.
"The trauma aspects are profoundly visible," Tiner said. "We have seen more suicides, many more bankruptcies -- an accumulated effect."
Counseling has been available for the
Sun Herald staff, and Tiner has learned that, as a manager, he has to be flexible and share the joy of small things. "There's a bowling alley opening on Pass Road," Tiner said, "and people here are forming teams and getting ready to go bowling."
And as a manager, Tiner said, "you have to learn to say no to upper management when it gets to be too much. But the biggest lesson I learned is that the capacity of the staff is more than you think it is. They were able to stretch beyond anything I could imagine.
"But you have to be mindful that people need down-time and recognize what we have left to do may be more important than what we have done. This is a building project and we have only taken baby steps. We have to help keep our leaders and the people energized for the biggest job we have ever faced."
It is a job of historical proportions. The scale of damage is so large that it almost can't be charted: Hundreds of thousands of people affected and nearly 70,000 homes destroyed on the Mississippi coast, with an emotional stress that can't be measured.
And then there's the fear that people elsewhere, especially in the halls of government, will forget Katrina and what she left behind in a time when attention spans are tracked in seconds.
The
Sun Herald has editorialized about being "the forgotten coast." That image was magnified when, for example, one network broadcast pictures of New Orleans' Ninth Ward in its report on the decision in
the lawsuit that had been brought against Nationwide Insurance in Mississippi.
Hey folks, both areas were crushed. Both need to rebuild. Both need enormous help.
Both need to ask, as Stan Tiner did of his staff, for more. And we can only hope the response is as great as what the
Sun Herald staff has delivered.
